Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1882 — A LITTLE TRUE HISTORY. [ARTICLE]

A LITTLE TRUE HISTORY.

The Fraud of 1876 and of 1882. (From the Commercial Advertiser (Rep.l.l When, on the morning of Nov. 8, 1876, the New York Times was the only paper in the United States to claim the election of R. B. Hayes, it was regarded as a piece of newspaper audacity rather than that of political prescience. In view of what afterward happened, the Democratic press declared that the Tinies, of all the papers in the country, was taken into the plot to steal the electoral votes of Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina. At all events, a few hours after the appearance of the Times, Chairman Chandler of the National Committee claimed a Republican victory, and telegrams were sent to the three States named to hold them. It is interesting to recall this fact, because the New York Times now claims to be the special advocate of purity and fairness in politics, though it is on record as claiming, in the face of overwhelming evidence at the time, the election of of a ticket the defeat of which the vast majority of the country believed in. The Tinies cannot claim credit for possessing the proof of the claim it made then, for it took long and exciting months of hard labor to collect it.

That paper desperately put forth its claim for the mere purpose of defeating a Democratic President by any means. Naturally the Democrats grew excited; they saw what they regarded as the • fruits of their victory about to be wrested from them, and great excitement grew. Congress met and appointed the Electoral Commission, but its aliunde decisions and its declaration of the fact that John Watts being a Postmaster in Oregon Nov. 7, and, on the same day, A. B. Levisee, acting as United States Commissioner in New Orleans, did not invalidate their right to act as Presidential elector 4 , the statute to the contrary notwithstanding, did not bring forth a protest from the papers that are now waxing indignant over a forged proxy at Saratoga. • The fact that Louisiana, on the face of the returns, had given over (5,000 majority for the Tilden electors whose credentials were signed by the representative of the party Hayes afterward recognized (thereby darkening his own title), was calmly ignored by the people who are now shrieking fraud and forgery, when the Electoral Commission decided that that majority “did not count.” Not one of those papers, not one of the men like Beecher, Woodford and Curtis, who are horrified by the late forgery, rai-ed their voice in denunciation of the “groat fraud,” the proof of which was clearer and more incontestable than anything alleged to have been done in Saratoga. On the contrary, Stewart L. Woodford subsequently boasted that he had made arrangements to kidnap Tilden if he made any attempt to assert his rights, put him on a gunboat, and convey him to prison until he could be tried for high treason. Beecher, Curtis and the rest, who are now so indignant over an alleged fraud that did not affect the convention’s action, abused the Democrats for daring to assume they had rights. It was left for a petty cheat, that in no way influenced the final result in a State Convention, to arouse their fine sense of propriety and indignation. They could coolly and calmly see the country on the verge of civil war—for more than one-half of the people believed they had been cheated—and not one of the present indignant patriots had a word to say against the great wrong; but when a forged proxy is used in a meeting of a State committee, though it did not affect a single nomination, least of all decide who should fill a high office notwithstanding the people, they are ready to sacrifice the party 1 “ Rather let us go down in defeat,” they now say, “than succeed with an unexceptionable ticket, nominated, it is alleged, with the a d of a forged proxy 1” What consistency ! What statesmanship! Mr. Tilden had an undisputed popular vote of 4,284,855, and Mr. Hayes 4,033950—a clear majority of 250,935 ; ana, though this majority backed up their claims with evidence of the strongest kind, the Times and its allies refused to consider them. On the contrary, when the Potter 1 committee was selected and Edward F. Noyes was specifically charged on the floor of the House of Representatives with stea’ing the vote of Florida, and John Sherman with doing the' same with that of Louisiana, they declared the proceedings an attack on the President’s title, revolutionary in the extreme, and an endeavor to Mexicanize the Government. That is how they looked at the fraud of 1876. Republican Interference with Business. Years ago when it was charged that a Republican administration, with Grant at the head, had interfered in Wall street, and assisted in producing that terrible crisis known as “Black Friday,” the charge was rejected as impossible. Notwithstanding the evidence in support of it, the majority of the people could not bring themselves to believe that the responsible head of a great Government could, for the mere ag grandizement of himself and his fi lends, prostitute his office to so frightful an extent. Yet it would almost seem the sensibilities of the public were unduly shocked on the occasion referred to. Whatever may have been thought a dozen years ago, there is apparently nothing in the Republican code of ethics now which makes it wrong, or even injudicious, for a h'gh official of the Government to use his power to control the stock or money market The Secretary of the Treasury, who is also candidate for Governor of New York, seems to look upon it as a matter of course that he should use his power as Secretary to affect the prices of stocks in aid of Iris election. In his recent letter to a Republican meeting at Albany he plainly declared that “the election of the Democratic ticket in New York” would shrink “the values of the great properties of the country,” a statement which, under the circumstances, no sane individual could construe otherwise than as a threat. And if there were any doubt about the matter, it would be set at rest by the announcement of the gentleman who presented the letter that “a Republican victory in November will send values up $100,000,000.” If this and the letter, taken together, do not mean that Folger, if defeated, will make the property of the country suffer

by a misuse of his official power, and that if elected he will, by misusing his power in a different way, send stocks up, they have no meaning at all. There is no danger that the people of New York will not promptly and satisfactorily rebuke this attempt to override the popular will by a threat. Folger will be defeated, iu spite of his power as Secretary of the Treasury and his willingness to prostitute it. But this reaction a>ainst such methods ought to extend, beyond New York. Although Folger is not running in Michigan the party which upholds him is struggling here, as in New York, for a continuance of power. It has no one here to officially promise prosperity or threaten injury as the result of defeat; but its leaders and speakers make the promise and the threat unofficially just as they did two years ago, when they declared that workshops and mills should be closed if the Democracy succeeded,. It is the same spirit that Folger and his fo 1 lowers are exhibiting in New York, and it should be rebuked here as it will be iu New York. — Detroit Free Press. Cotton Thread Catechism. How many spools of cotton thread are used in the United States in a year ? About 25,000,000 dozen. From whftt material is this thread made ? From raw cotton grown in the United States. How is this raw cotton produced ? By free labor, in competition with the so-called pauper labor of the whole cotton-grown g world. Is the growing of raw cotton protected by a tariff or tax? It is not. What is the tariff or tax levied on cotton thread ? About 23 J cents on each dozen spools. For whose benefit is this tax levied ? For the benefit of the thread manufacturers, or the thread monopoly. How ranch does this tax amount to ? Nearly $6,000,000 a year. Who pays this enormous tax? Poor sewing-women and others who use cotton thread. Do the rich use more of this kind of thread than the poor ? Clearly not; for in making their wearing apparel silk thread is used more than cot' on ? Upon whom, then, does the burden of this tax upon cotton thread mostly fall? Upon the poor, of course. Will the Tariff Commission recommend the repeal of this tax? No! Emphatically no! Why not? • Because it would lighten the burdens of the poor consumers and decrease the profits of the rich manufacturers. Beside, the poor consumers do not contribute anything to pay campaign expenses and buy votes for the high-tarifl Republican party, while the rich manufacturers do contribute freely lor that purpose. But, can cotton thread be made in this country if the users of it are not taxed and compelled to pay something in addition to the natural price of thread in a free market, on eve y spool they buy ? Undoubtedly it can. The raw cotton is grown here; we have an abundance of machinery and labor: and the cost of sending the cotton abroad and bringing the thread back again, together with the extra commissions on the cotton and extra profits of transportation afford protection enough for our manufacturers, without levying this tax of 231 cents upon each dozen spool«. When will this sort of iniquity end? When the peop'e demand that tariff, or taxes, shall be levied solely to support the Government, and not to pay bounties and subsidies to certain favored classes and interest-, among which are the cotton-thread monopolies of New England. — Jackson Patriot. In New Hampshire Also. New York isn’t the only State where fraud in nominating a candidate for Governor has broken the Republican party in twain. New Hampshire is in the same fix. Ex-Senator Wadleigh, of that State, a life-long Republican, writes to the discontented Republicans in Keene, whom he has been invited to address, as follows: That the present Republican candidate for Governor was nominated by shameless bribery, hateful to all honest men, is an open secret. To compass his nomination, the Secretary of the Navy ostentatiously sailed to Portsmouth with the fleet and the President, and stepped from the deck of a war-ship into the convention. Fresh from an ifiterview with that official, the leader of the Portsmouth delegation was guilty of unwonted treachery, pleading as an excuse the command of “a power he could not resist.” The candidate thus forced upon us encountered the most vigorous home opposition, growing out of his sharp business practices, which was met by the argument that, if nominated, he could neutralize it at the polls by the purchase of Democratic votes. Beyond all, it is evident that his nomination was part of a plot by which the lobbyist of Boss Shepheard, John Roach and Jay Gould is to be lifted to a seat in the Senate of the United States, there to represent, not the people of New Hampshire, but his employers and the corrupt rings of the national capital who plunder the people.